


Sing When No One's Around

by Zakle



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Depression, Douglas is a Theatre Kid, Gen, Homophobia, M/M, Musical References, Obsessive Behavior, Original Character-centric, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Possession, Season 1, Short Chapters, Suicidal Thoughts, Supernatural - Freeform, Theatre
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:41:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27550186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zakle/pseuds/Zakle
Summary: Douglas Whitman, a closeted gay teenager, found his family in the local theater group, only to lose most of them by their own hands when a song none of them knew possessed them into the act. Now, his own hands shake to join them.Enter the Winchester brothers.
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Uhhh. I have no idea what this idea is to be honest—it just kind of stuck out in my mind like a sore thumb. It couldn't be ignored once I noticed it. And, besides, I've been wanting to do a Supernatural fanfiction for a while but didn't feel confident enough to dive in.
> 
> Still not. I've only watched up to the second season (been rewatching, though, so currently first season atm) so that's why this is set in the first season. Characters may or may not be terribly out of character. I'm trying to keep them as canon as I possibly can.
> 
> Because it is first season, I'd imagine this to be around the time Sam was frustrated and wanting to skip jobs to find their father.
> 
> Summary's also crap. Bleh. Will rewrite that later.

Douglas Whitman heard the front door open but he didn't turn from the sink. He scrubbed at the already clean plate in a daze.

"Honey? There are some people here who want to talk to you..." The woman's voice started off strong before it grew weaker, eventually trailing off to a stuttering stop. She shuffled awkwardly out of the way.

Without turning, eyes fixed on the running water, he muttered, unsure and uncaring if they even heard him, "Already talked to the police." Why were they even here? Hadn't they gotten what they wanted from him already? His chest tightened and he pushed the urge to scream far away.

"Yeah, well, you didn't talk to us." Douglas took in a deep, steadying, breath, and begrudgingly turned around. No sense in putting it off; he had a feeling they wouldn't leave him alone easily. The man who talked was shorter than the other, well built, and shared more than a passing resemblance with his partner. He grinned and held out a hand. "I'm Dean and this is my brother, Sam. We worked with your police chief a while back and he thought this was something we could help with."

Douglas crossed his arms. "Uh huh. Let's just get this over with, alright?" Dean's hand raised up to run through his hair, chuckling awkwardly.

His brother, Sam, moved forward. "We're so sorry for your loss. I understand if you're not feeling up to this, but we really do need to know what you saw." He sounded genuine, Douglas thought, but his body language was off. Almost twitchy.

"Am I keeping you from something?" Douglas couldn't stop himself from asking harshly.

Sam's eyes widened. "Uh—"

"Nope, we're good."

The brothers shared a look, Dean tilting his head. Douglas shrugged half-heartedly at the exchange.

Dean cleared his throat. "So, what happened?"

"It was in the paper."

"Tell us again."

Did he really have to do this again? He didn't want to talk. He was tired of talking...of reliving it. A sudden lump formed in his throat and he struggled to swallow it. "It was...It was a normal day. We were playing around after practice and Liberty started singing." He stopped, his shoulders drawing up as his hands tightened around his arms.

"What was she singing?" Sam asked.

Douglas laughed. "I don't know. It started spreading, you know, until all of us were doing it."

"What did it feel like? Was there a voice? A feeling?"

"It was like this pressure. Here." Gingerly, he pressed his fingers to the back of his head, right behind his ear.

Dean leaned against the doorway. "And this hasn't happened before? No other spontaneous musical numbers, no cha-cha lines down the hallway, nothing?"

"No." Douglas leaned closer into the kitchen counter, ignoring the dull bite of the linoleum edge. "Are we done?" His knees trembled.

Sam sighed. "Almost. I promise. What happened next?"

"Bleeding. Out of their ears, their mouth, eyes." Douglas picked at his sleeves and tried to ignore the phantom itch where his own blood had spilled out. The only one he couldn't ignore easily was his ear. Abruptly, he roughly swiped at it, an unconscious whimper escaping. It was burning. The pressure building once more.

A touch on his shoulder had him looking up with a twitch. He hadn't seen them moving. Sam gently pressed him towards a chair, while Dean picked up a drying glass and filled it with tap water. He sat uneasily at the table. The cup was placed in front of him.

"You alright?"

He wasn’t sure which one asked that. All he knew was that he needed to get out, get away. But he couldn't, not with Dean back to hovering at the door and Sam buzzing around his head, so instead he swallowed again and settled for a wordless nod, not trusting his voice at the moment. He stared at the water.

Slowly, like someone else was there speaking for him, he spoke, his tone even and detached. "They picked up the equipment, the wires, someone even broke the leg off a chair, and then they were falling. The blood spread."

Sam's breath shuddered, and he glanced at the man briefly before letting his eyes return to the cup. "They," Sam began, sharing another look with his brother over Douglas' head, "They killed each other?"

Douglas shook his head. "No, they killed themselves." Finally his fingers wrapped around the glass, the water gently vibrating with the sudden movement. He wondered, numbly, what it would feel like to just break it and—

"I had a knife." A weight on his shoulders lifted with the near silent admission, a weight he hadn't even realized was there until it was gone.

The chair next to him was pulled out and Sam lowered himself into it. "Did you want to hurt yourself?" he asked, his brow furrowed.

Douglas paused, trying to think without really thinking. "No," he finally said, "I wanted to kill myself. I had to. Needed to." He blinked and shook his head. "Are we almost done? I need to finish the dishes."

"Almost, just one more question. Was there anything strange leading up to it? Anything you can remember?" Dean asked.

"Um, no. Not that I can remember."

Sam stood, visibly weighing something in his mind. "Listen, we're going to be in town for a while, and, if you need anything, we'll be at this motel." He placed a bent card on the table. Hesitantly, he patted Douglas' shoulder, searching the young boy's face as he added a quick, "Christo."

The teenager's brow furrowed, coming out of his daze just long enough to give Sam an incredulous expression, his mouth slightly opened. "What—"

"Thank you for talking to us," Dean interrupted, voice tense, his lips twitching. Before Douglas could say anything more, the brothers were out the door, heading towards an older black car parked on the side of the road.

He sat in silence for a bit more before standing and stumbling back to the sink. He gripped the scrubber in a white knuckled grip, and began distractedly humming.

* * *

"Something is definitely going on here, Sammy," Dean said as he drove away from the white picketed house. He hadn't been fully convinced this was their kind of job but talking to Douglas Whitman, one of the few surviving members of a youth theater group massacre, had changed his mind. Something about his demeanor and the way he zoned out during their questions raised a big, fat, ugly red flag.

His monster senses were tingling. And it was a bad son of a bitch.

"He's possessed," Sam remarked, voicing Dean's concerns.

"Yeah, but by what? Didn't look to be a demon or a spirit. Thing didn't react with God's name. I sure as hell don't know any that uses the power of music. Do you?" Dean glanced at his brother with a quirked brow. "Gotta admit that's a new one."

His little brother snorted, already shifting through their father's journal, his sharp eyes examining each page in quick succession. "We have to get this thing, Dean. We can't let it take any more lives."

"You're telling me."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoop! Been really in the mood to write (actually doing about three projects right now) but I didn't think I'd get this done so soon. Pretty happy with it thus far. :>
> 
> In case it's not obvious, the Winchesters won't have a solid presence, at least not right now. This is an original character-centric fic but they'll be the next chapter.

Time was both ridiculously fast and obnoxiously slow. Less than a week ago, he was sitting in the same seat, laughing. Now, he just wanted to scream. 

_He always wanted to scream._

Douglas didn't know how to handle this; he had never been emotional, not really. He hadn't cried when his parents—his real parents—died. He hadn't cried when he lost his first dog, Ruffles, or when his second dog, Stonemason, went missing for a full month. He hadn't even cried when he fell down the stairs and broke his arm when he was thirteen or when they had to rebreak it after a bad self reset.

So why did he want to do just that? Cry and scream until...until what? He was lost. Completely, utterly, lost.

**And he didn't know how to handle this; he had never been emotional, not really. But wasn't he? He was too emotional for his own good. He cried when his real parents died. He cried easily over stupid animals. He cried when all he broke was an arm. It was too much, too much, and he just needed to release the pressure so it wouldn't hurt anymore. And it was such an easy fix.**

"Douglas!" A pair of warm hands wrapped around his—when did he get so cold?—and pulled. Something flew loose from his stiff fingers. They grasped at nothing, curling instinctively around the other person. They were speaking, loudly, shaking him hard enough to rattle his brain, but, as though he were underwater, all he heard was muffled sounds.

"What?" Douglas whispered, voice hoarse and drowned out by the buzzing in his head. He blinked slowly, lowering his eyes slightly to the voice, and he stared at the blurred mess of shapeless colors. A long, angled jaw with a wide chin came into focus, and he felt his breath hitch.

Of all the people to find him why the hell did it have to be Benjamin Moore?

Ben shook him once more before abruptly shoving him. Douglas tripped over his own two feet and stumbled, roughly, into a chair. He peered, anxiously, at the other boy. "Seriously? What the hell is wrong with you?!" Ben's eyes were wide and wildly searching the other's face, his fingers dug painfully into Douglas' tense shoulders.

"Hasn't this town suffered enough already? You want to add one more body to our funeral home?"

"I—I don't know," Douglas stuttered. And he realized he really didn't. There were too many verses to too many songs in his head, and he couldn't tell which one was him in all that mess.

~~Was it even his idea to come here?~~

**It was his idea to come here.**

Ben cursed under his breath and stepped away. "You're impossible," he said.

Douglas gripped the sides of the chair and waited, his heart tightening with each second. It was coming. It had to be. He raised his shoulders and clenched his jaw. **Did he really think he wouldn't cry again?** He won't, though, because he knew better; crying made things worse. 

Did it? It did. Ben's mouth was moving, but he couldn't understand. His brow furrowed and he strained his ears to hear.

"—od, you need to go. We need to get you out of here." Ben was back to clutching at Douglas' arms but this time he was pulling instead of pushing.

"Why aren't you saying it? You always say it."

Ben froze, a flash of uncertainty crossed his face. He sputtered. "That was—That was years ago, shit. Why are you bringing this up now? I thought you forgave me."

Douglas looked away. "I can't remember," he whispered. Did he...?

**No, he hadn't.**

Yeah, that was right. He _hadn't_ forgiven Ben. ~~But he did.~~

~~He did. He did. He...~~

_He did._

With a sudden burst of energy, he sprung forward and grabbed the front of Ben's shirt, his chest heaving and hands uncontrollably trembling. "I did! I know I did, but I—I didn't at the same time. Ben, please, help me! I don't know what's going on and I just—"

Ben cursed again and threw his stocky arms around Douglas' lanky frame, successfully cutting him off from the budging panic attack. Neither spoke, just stood, rocking smoothly left to right, with Douglas' forehead on the other's shoulder. It hurt his back and he'd most likely have a crick in his neck later but he felt his eyes close, his head growing lighter.

He was warm.

~~**He was cold.** ~~

~~~~Breathing was getting easier, his heart didn't feel like it was going to explode anymore.

"You alright?"

Douglas nodded, and, with one last shuddering breath, stepped back. "Yeah," he said. "I don't know why I...I'm sorry."

Ben's answering smile was sad. "It's alright. Let's just get you out of here, okay?" He put a hand against Douglas' back and guided him towards the door. It was gentle, barely there, but the presence was enough to ground him, to remind him. He glanced around uneasily, his eyes catching a glint of light on the floor several feet from them. Quickly, he looked away from it, bile rising in his throat.

He was close to doing something terrible, and it wasn't _him_ who was going to do it. Somehow the fact it wasn't really his choice upset him more. Absentmindedly, one of his hands drifted to his hoodie pocket where the torn motel card was; he had grabbed it without thought.

Where did he get it from again? He wasn't sure but he had a feeling he had to go there.

"Hey, do you know where the Yellow Brick Motel is?"

"I just caught you with a knife at your throat and the first thing you want to do is go to some shotty motel at the edge of town? Sure, why not. Nothing suspect there." Ben bit his lip before shaking his hand and scowling. "Nope. You're not going there alone."

Douglas sighed, thinking over his next words carefully. "I'll be—"

"What part of 'knife at your throat' are you not getting?"

He couldn't stop the second, stronger, sigh. Ben stepped away to open the door. Once it was open, creaking in all its rusted glory, he turned to face Douglas with an expected look. "Well?" he demanded. "Do I need to handcuff you to me or..."

"Alright, alright! You can come with," Douglas chuckled, rolling his eyes. He tried to forget the rising flush on his face. God, he must've looked like an idiot; a blushing, gangly idiot at that.

Ben stretched out an arm. "After you, musical boy." Despite his words, there was a tremor in his voice, an uneasiness. Paired with the flighty glances he was giving Douglas, there was no doubt what happened here wasn't about to go unspoken. 

Douglas swallowed. That was a stupid wish. Of course, it wouldn't be forgotten—he was going to cut his own throat. Of course, Ben would be worried. Of course, he'd want to make sure there wouldn't be any more attempts. Of course, he wouldn't understand the pressure in the back of his head or the voice that sounded so familiar. And, of course, it wasn't anything else. That well had dried out long ago and left a desert.

He shuffled past Ben with tightly crossed arms and a heavy heart, swiping at his ear with one shoulder.


End file.
